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Spot, Margin, and Perps Share One Pool

Capital Wasted by Splitting​

In the traditional architecture, offering both spot and derivatives trading requires two independent pools of liquidity:

  • One for the spot AMM (for swaps)
  • One for the derivatives protocol (as counterparty/margin pool)

Two pools of capital, each sitting on its own, each collecting its own rent. The industry-wide cost is billions in idle margin and duplicated market-making.

Catswap's Structure​

One contract, one pool, one vault:

  • Spot swaps happen directly in the pool — like any AMM;
  • Leverage is built on in-pool borrowing — the borrowed assets circulate on the ledger, while real settlement happens in the same reserves;
  • Derivatives use the pool as counterparty and price source — no second pool of liquidity needed.

LP liquidity serves both the swap side and the borrowing side at once, so capital efficiency is naturally higher than "deposit once per market." For traders, it means spot depth and leverage depth come from the same source — however deep the pool is, both markets are that deep at the same time.

Why Doesn't Everyone Do This​

A unified pool is not a new idea — the difficulty is the safety model. When the spot curve is also the settlement curve for leverage, exit costs, liquidation ordering, and manipulation defense must all be exactly computable. Our pool shape was designed for precisely this — the liquidity form guarantees analytically tractable exit costs and quantifiable defense, which is the foundation that makes "one pool serves every scenario" safe. See the anti-manipulation philosophy.